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Domestic organic honey certification?

The wife was checking into organic certifiction for our honey. Several different regulating bodies. for all our efforts to going chem free...we will not be able to say organic...any time soon.

Seems kinda arbitrary. Are there any beekeepers on the rule-making boards?

They need a reality check.

some of the stipulations require that no non-organic nectar or pollen sources for the bees be present -for miles in every direction. How can they require such a thing when, for all practical purposes that place doesnt exist- on this earth. There's always some nitwit spraying something on some plant or bug- no matter how far out you go. Also No syrup, no brewer's yeast patties...

no wonder there's no domestic organic honey. I saw a jar of Indian honey that said organic, I thought yeah right.

Organic honey

In my opinion there is no such thing as organin honey any more.Sad but true,even the rain has chem.in it. I tell my custumers That I don!t use chem.in my hives except fumigilin-B and only then before the honey supers go on and after they come off.That the only other treatment is powder sugar.They appreciate your honesty and you would bee surprised at how many people are concerned about the bees dying off.If you advertise organic honey for sale, your asking for trouble.

What the BS meter is pegging on is the fact they are selling crystallized honey for the best thing since sliced bread and for a price out of this world. But then I would expect no less for "Tropical" honey from Canadia!! Did the Equator get moved while I was sleeping or what??

All that runs through my head when I see ads like these are Carfax commercials.......

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

I know of a crook from California that says hes making honey according to demeter organic standards. If you ever do business with this guy watch out his hives are loaded with foul brood. He stole 32 of my hives (8 pallets) and returned the rest of my hives in very poor shape and still owes me $11,000. His name is Scott Nelson and his companies are: Wine Country Honey, Nelson Family Apiaries, And now Bear foot honey farm.

some of the stipulations require that no non-organic nectar or pollen sources for the bees be present -for miles in every direction. How can they require such a thing when, for all practical purposes that place doesnt exist- on this earth.

no wonder there's no domestic organic honey. I saw a jar of Indian honey that said organic, I thought yeah right.

matt

Do you disagree that organic products should have a standard of production? If a customer buys one product labeled organic and another product labled organic shouldn't those two products have to meet the same standard?

Organic milk comes from certified organic cows. The farmer buys certified organic grain, hay, and grazes on certified organic pastures. If a dairy is to be certified organic it encompases every aspect of that operation from it's hayfields and pastures right on down to the cleaners and water used to sanitize the milking equipment.

We do not have that type of control over our honey bee operations, so no...Honey should not be labeled organic no matter where it is from.

Any beekeeper who has a desire to sell organic honey should know enough about organics to logically realize that it is not possible. Any beekeeper who jumps through the hoops and gets certified is missleading their customers for monetary gain. Not to the extent of the the beekeeper next door who labels organic without the certification, but it is still miss-leading customers about the product they are buying.

Almost like the words "Guarantee'. I find that everything anymore has a, or is, "Guaranteed" but when you come right down to it, they are not really. Not that some don't mean what they say, but most are not around when you need your money back or a replacement.

1. vent my frustration about these unworkable standards created by those who dont appear to know the first thing about honey bees foraging. And the economics of keeping more than one or two hives.

2. dialog about the state of chemical exposure we are all submit to.

In my mind the real issue is that the the fact that the natural world is getting so contaminated in the course of us running aroud doing our business. Nobody is shocked by this fact. Truly organic honey doesnt seem possible right now.

organic honey is full of some of the same

misrepresentations as organic maple syrup.

mostly people trying to milk an extra dollar from their business and greenwashing their appearance.

some use the $5000 exclusion rule. if you only sell under 5K of farm products you can call them organic without paying for the certification. what a joke. like who is counting the jars going out the back door?

try this test

Originally Posted by bluegrass

Organic milk comes from certified organic cows. The farmer buys certified organic grain, hay, and grazes on certified organic pastures. If a dairy is to be certified organic it encompasses every aspect of that operation from it's hay fields and pastures right on down to the cleaners and water used to sanitize the milking equipment.

Please describe an organic cow!

Better yet, please describe an in-organic cow.

In your scenario you talked about the farmer buying organic grain, and hay.

That makes his product non local/sustainable.

We are now caught in a circular argument, a sure recipe for failure.

If your organic cow had mastitis and you treated her would she ever again

be organic? If you didn't treat her wouldn't that constitute animal abuse?

Isn't organic exactly like virginity?

Scrapfe---Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.--Otto von Bismarck.

when in Rome do what the Romans did, crucify the truth.

Originally Posted by mendocino queen honey

Hi all.

The wife was checking into organic certifiction for our honey...Several different regulating bodies. for all our efforts to going chem free...we will not be able to say organic...No wonder there's no domestic organic honey. I saw a jar of Indian honey that said organic, I thought yeah right.

When in Rome do what the Romans do, crucify the truth. Just do what the Hindu beeks did, start your own certification organization. Then you can certify your honey is from Mars if you want. Hey, I just saw an ad that was selling organic Mars honey, made from green cheese blossoms.

Scrapfe---Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.--Otto von Bismarck.

yada yada yada

Originally Posted by bluegrass

Do you disagree that organic products should have a standard of production? If a customer buys one product labeled organic and another product labled organic shouldn't those two products have to meet the same standard?

Organic is the biggest joke since the cereal titans claimed corn flakes would stop children from masturbating. Remember the killer strawberries or the deadly apple juice, the green onions from the under world, the peppers from purgatory, ditto spinach, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, the list is endless. The one common fact in all these cases of food born illness is they were all traced to organic produce.

Take the following organic food awareness test. Go to an organic truck farmer and buy some organic food. If they ask for your name or email to keep you posted on the news from the organic home front by all means give it to them. Sit back and wait for the marketing messages to arrive, something like, ”Come by all this week and join us for the hefting of the harvest celebration,” or enter our “Can you still cut the mustard, greens picking contest.”

However, you will never receive the following message, “Come to our organic festival tomorrow and try your hand at pilling on the poop” or “The shoveling of the s—t fest.” Yes, every one claims their organic er… material undergoes the equivalent of nuclear pasteurization, it ain’t necessarily so. So when you shop at the organic produce isle remember to bring a jewelers loupe…so you can pick off the small particles of Charmin before you take your organic food home.

I guess organic honey must come from Nosema infected bees.

Scrapfe---Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.--Otto von Bismarck.

In your scenario you talked about the farmer buying organic grain, and hay.

That makes his product non local/sustainable.

We are now caught in a circular argument, a sure recipe for failure.

If your organic cow had mastitis and you treated her would she ever again

be organic? If you didn't treat her wouldn't that constitute animal abuse?

Isn't organic exactly like virginity?

I am completely anti-organic.... I have been there and done that. It was great back in the 80-90s when we where doing it to protect the environment...Then somewhere along the line somebody got it into their head that organic was better for you as a consumer from a nutritional standpoint.

The fact is that organic food from a nutritional standpoint is no more nutritional than the same food produced by conventional means.

As a past organic dairy farmer I can answer the question on mastitis and treating cows. The answer was simple if you had planty of new calves on hand. We would close her in a stall and turn five or six young calves loose on her and they keep it sucked out until it clears up. The same treatment is used with humans with mastitis only it is a breast pump instead of calves. If we did not have young calves on hand she was hamburger.

Once an organic cow is treated with an inorganic medication, feed, etc she is no longer organic. There is very little oversite once the farm is certified organic and if I had a sick cow, treated it and then put it back in the herd nobody would no the difference..... That is one of the major problems with organics.

Maple syrup is organic, never heard of a farmer who did anything to his trees other than tap them and boil down the sap. I am sure the larger outfits like Maple Grove farms has tricks that could make their product not organic, but the small scale producers don't. Many producers are going from evaporation to reverse osmosis to make maple syrup so I am not sure how that fits into the organic argument.